Consumers have a wide variety of individual tastes, particularly with regard to their preferred level of sweetness in foods and beverages. Limitations relating to production abilities, shipping quantities, and shelf space, however, restrict the ability of a manufacturer as to the variety of foods and beverages that can be offered to the consumer. Furthermore, in some instances, the consumer desires to sweeten a consumable item to a unique, personalized level rather than be limited to the choices provided by the food or beverage manufacturer. A large market has arisen, therefore, seeking to provide packaged sweeteners to consumers. Such sweeteners allow the consumer to sweeten foods and beverages to their individual tastes.
Sucralose (4,1′,6′-trichloro-4,1′,6′-trideoxy-galactosucrose) is a high-intensity sweetener made from sucrose that can be used in many food and beverage applications. Sucralose is generally made following procedures set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,362,869; 4,380,476; 4,801,700; 4,950,746; 5,470,969; and 5,498,709, as well as in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/991,123, the disclosures of each of which are incorporated in this document by reference. Sucralose may be provided for consumer use in a number of forms useful in the sweetening of foods and liquids. These forms include sachets, tubular packets, liquid drops, tablets, and granules or crystals.
In all of these forms, the intensity of the sweetener requires that the high-intensity sweetener be diluted with a non-sweet or less-sweet compound to make use practical. For example, a teaspoon of sucrose weighs about 4 grams. The equivalent amount of sucralose would be 0.007 grams. This amount of material would be very hard to put into a sachet consistently, and would be nearly impossible to transfer from the sachet to a liquid, such as coffee, which a user desires to sweeten. As a result, a typical sachet contains sucralose diluted 20–100 times with a carrier such as dextrose. All consumer forms—including tablets, granules, and liquid drops—are diluted to facilitate delivery.
All of the conventional forms have some limitation. First, the use of the diluent adds weight and volume to the product, while adding no appreciable value, and increases the processing and shipping costs. Second, the diluent reduces the applicability of the product; diluents are often unacceptable to certain members of the population. For example, food-grade carbohydrate carriers, such as dextrose and maltodextrin, are not acceptable to people on restricted carbohydrate diets. Fiber-based carriers are unacceptable to people subject to gastrointestinal (GI) distress. Liquid products require single-use packaging or preservatives to prevent microbial contamination, making them unacceptable to people who avoid the use of common preservatives.
Therefore, dry (rather than liquid) forms of sucralose, such as tablets, granules, and sachets, are often desired for sweetening liquids. Tablets are a popular consumer form for delivery of most high-intensity sweeteners. They are particularly well suited for use in sweetening beverages, such as coffee. In fact, in some markets, particularly the United Kingdom and Australia, tablets command the highest market share of all the consumer forms. Tablets are currently available containing all of the commercial sweeteners including aspartame, acesulfame, saccharine, sucralose, as well as some of the protein-based sweeteners such as stevia. Commercially available tablets are produced using conventional tableting equipment and formulation technology.
The art of delivery systems is replete with various types of systems used to deliver solid food, liquids, drugs, and other necessary items. The Hayshiabara Company of Japan has long sold a drug delivery system, for example, in which the drug is impregnated into a dissolvable, ingestable polymer strip. The dissolvable strip technology has recently become popular as a way to deliver other intense ingredients such as breath fresheners. This form could be used to deliver a high-intensity sweetener but is limited in its ability to carry large amounts of sweetener and would apply only to very intense sweeteners such as sucralose or neotame. Other sweeteners would require very large strips to carry a reasonable amount of sweetener. Large strips would work, but would create issues associated with the GI impact of the large polymer dose.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,707 issued to Sanker et al. is directed to seamless beadlets for customization of flavor and sweetener in a beverage. The beadlet comprises a shell material with a core composition in the material of the shell material suitable for ingestion. Examples of these materials are gelatin, polyvinyl alcohols, waxes, and gums. The shell material forms a pocket in which the core of the material is contained. The core material that is used for flavoring the beverage contains a flavor component as well as a sweetener component comprising acetosulfame and a second sweetener selected from a specified class of compounds. The shell material may be formed in a variety of shapes, such as spheres, oblong shapes, disks, puffed squares, and cylinders.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,238,690 is directed to food products containing seamless capsules and methods of making the same. The patent describes consumable products that are made of a seamless capsule with an outer shell. The outer shell is made of a carbohydrate material and encloses an inner core that may include beverages, as well as other foodstuffs.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,300,305 is directed to breath protection microcapsules. The shell materials that are used in the microcapsules are suitable for ingestion and may be formed in a variety of shapes. Various materials may be enclosed within the shell material and these include sweeteners such as sugar, saccharine, and aspartame.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,683 is directed to beverage capsules and describes a beverage base that is enclosed in a thin-walled solid envelope made of chocolate or a fat-based confectionery coating. This patent cites French Patent No. 1,442,282, which describes a food product comprising beverage powders surrounded by an envelope of sugar, enabling two different products to be taken in a single operation and their instantaneous dissolution together.
U.S. Published Patent Application No. 2002/0012689 describes liquid-activated infusion packet systems whereby the enveloping materials may be totally or partially edible. The packets may enclose materials including various flavors, as well as pharmaceutical and dietary supplements. Also described are a number of packet systems that are used for a variety of purposes including the delivery of sweetening agents.
Sucralose is very stable as long as it contains at least 0.5 weight-% moisture (as disclosed by El Kabani et al. in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/991,123). When less mositure is present, sucralose can break down, resulting in browning or brown spotting (i.e., discoloration) of the dry material. Although the problem exists at room temperature, at higher temperatures of about 40° C. to 55° C., which can occur in transport and storage (e.g., warehouse) environments, tablet forms of sucralose, even with higher levels of moisture present, can form spots in as little as three days. The problem is exacerbated when increased pressure is applied, such as during compression of the sucralose to form tablets and other compressed forms.
Thus, despite the very high stability of sucralose in food and beverage applications, when powdered crystalline sucralose is compressed into a tablet form an instability is often created that manifests itself as brown spotting or browning (i.e., discoloration). Although such tablets show no discernable loss of sweetness and the breakdown products have been thoroughly tested for safety as part of the federal Food and Drug Administration food additive petition process, the discoloration renders the product unacceptable to most consumers. To maintain consumer acceptance, therefore, sucralose must be color stable (i.e., remain white).
Interestingly, the inventors named on U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/991,123, El Kabani et al., disclose that a moisture content of between 0.5 and 10 percent by weight in loose powdered sucralose can greatly enhance its stability. They also disclose that addition of a buffer to the sucralose solution before crystallization significantly increases the stability of the sucralose crystallized from the solution. The inventors still further disclose that, by maintaining the pH of the sucralose-containing crystallization solution in the range of 5.5 to 8.5 during the crystallization process, the stability of the final crystalline sucralose can be improved. Further, sachets containing sucralose and a variety of incipients having between 0.5 weight-% and 10 weight-% moisture behave in a stable manner. Despite the presence of moisture, however, tablets containing compressed forms of sucralose experience bowning and brown spotting. Accordingly, there remains a need for an improved sucralose composition that resists discoloration.
To overcome the shortcomings of existing dry sucralose compositions, the method of forming such compositions, and the systems used to deliver such compositions, a new sucralose composition is provided. Also provided is a method of forming and a system for delivering the composition. An object of the present invention is to provide an improved sucralose composition. Related objects are to provide an improved method of forming the composition and an improved system for delivering the composition. Another object is to provide an improved sucralose composition that exhibits increased stability. It is still another object of the present invention to reduce the risk of discoloration in a sucralose composition.